Customize Own Nokia Lumia 920 & 820 Shell with 3D Print Development Kit

Nokia, once the king of the mobile phone industry is lagging far behind Samsung, Apple and Google today. But with the launch of their Windows Phone 8 Smartphones and tablets, the company’s sagging fortunes seem to have risen. To give us yet another reason to bag the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920, Nokia has come out with a unique concept: custom make your own shell for your Nokia Lumia 820 and 920. The Finnish manufacturer announced the launch of its 3D Printing Development Kit or 3DK to enable this customization.

Customized Nokia Lumia 920/820 Shell casing with 3D Development Kit.

In effect they are inviting their customers to build one of the components of their product. If you remember, Nokia has had a history of openness; remember Symbian? The only reason why that failed to take off was that they were a tad tardy with their code releases. But that was software, and this is all about the hardware. Having sacrificed software openness by going with Windows rather than Android, the company seems to be keen on keeping the hardware options open for their consumers.

The Nokia Lumia 820 has a removable shell which can be replaced with different colored or textured shells, and you can add protection against shock and dust. You even have the option of having a shell that adds wireless charging capability in the Lumia phones. Included in the kit will be case specifications, templates in 3D, material suggestions and good old advice; in short all that you’re likely to need for a 3D printing for your Nokia Lumia 820 case.

According to John Kneeland, a Manager with the company in Silicon Valley, you can literally let your imagination run wild. He foresees that in the near future, more components of the phone would be customizable, enabling someone to actually have a phone that glows in the dark and has a bottle opener and solar charger attached to it!

This makes Nokia the first phone manufacturer to embrace the 3D printing technology and recognize its potential. Yes, you can get 3D printing schematics for your iPhones; but those are usually 3rd party and not part of the Apple Smartphone.

According to Stephen Elop, the internal use of this technology has helped them increase their clock speed.

When the internet and the mobile phone were first released, they completely transformed the way human beings communicated, or even went about their daily lives. 3D printing looks to be the next big thing as far as revolutionizing human lives in concerned. The only downside I can point out is that if there is a mass adoption of 3D printing, it may send people into a tizzy, wanting to slice and dice their phones and incorporate parts that are not really suitable for them.

In a way, Nokia’s 3D K release may well prevent such a thing from happening, and limit the experimentation to the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920. All in all, it’s a very smart move from the company, and I’m sure that many will be induced to buy the Nokia Lumia phones; especially D-I-Y enthusiasts!

Read: The Need for Mobile Device Management

This is a guest post by Allan Goltz, He likes writing articles related to Technology News, Gadget Reviews and How To. He also does guest posting for buycharter.com – a site that offers savings and current information on charter tv.